


i got an empty cup, pour me some more

by glitteration



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: M/M, just so much angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-28
Updated: 2017-05-28
Packaged: 2018-11-05 21:29:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11021958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glitteration/pseuds/glitteration
Summary: On the far edge of together and not, Miller and Bryan come together one last time.





	i got an empty cup, pour me some more

**Author's Note:**

> Set after the end of 4x2 and before 4x3, written for the kinkmeme.

The shittiest thing about your boyfriend dumping you is fucking everything. There's no one ache to pick out from among the throng as they jostle for position and shout what-ifs in his ear, leaving him feeling like he's gone ten rounds with a goddamn hurricane.  
  
The part that sucks the hardest right now, though, is coming back to their room to find Bryan separating all their crap into piles.  
  
It hits like a piledriver, pain wedging behind his breastbone and _burning_. Bryan looks up at him like he's the one who got caught stealing this go-round and now he’s waiting for the lash to come down. The hangdog sadness and guilty droop of his shoulders makes Miller want to break something.  
  
"Good thing I traded the rest of my shift for Harper's morning run tomorrow." Bryan looks ashamed and paradoxically it only pisses him off more. "So, what, you were just gonna bail out while I was on-duty?"  
  
"Yeah, pretty much." Bryan looks down at the shirt in his hands, twisting the material. "Nate..."  
  
"What?"  
  
"It wasn't supposed to be like this." He drops the shirt, looking fucking _haggard_ ; it's almost enough to push the anger back in its cage.  
  
"You're the guy who made the call here, Bry." _Almost_. Not quite.  
  
"Because you don't _get it_." Now Bryan's pissed too and Miller revels in it, this unintentional but needed release for the tension they've tried to pretend hasn't been a silent third partner dogging their steps since the day Farm Station came back and kicked over a hornet's nest. "I don't need you to think we did the right thing, Nate, but if you don't even think their lives were worth it..."  
  
"What good are their lives if we're all dead in six months?"  
  
The words drop like a stone and Bryan flinches, turning his face away. "Maybe nothing." He takes a deep breath, pushing up from the floor and wavering a little on his bad leg. "But that could have been me, if Pike hadn't kept us all together after they started taking people. Would my life have been worth it?"  
  
Now it's Miller's turn to stagger. "How can you ask me that?"  
  
"Because I _don't know_ , Nate. It wasn't worth it for Riley. For that little girl."  
  
"That's different. Jesus Christ, Bry, how do you not know that?" If it had been Bryan... "I would have blown the whole goddamn place myself, if that's what it took," he finishes the thought aloud, grabbing Bryan's shoulder and shaking him like he can force the truth of his words into him by touch. "Fuck taking a vote."  
  
"So why not for them?"  
  
"I don't _love_ them." The protest bursts from his chest, low and hard-edged. "I didn't spend all this time waiting for them, keeping my eye on the prize from the second they threw me in the Skybox. I didn't disobey orders and head into Ice Nation because I thought maybe, just _maybe_ , they might be alive. I didn't—"  
  
Bryan's lips are chapped and he knocks his teeth into Miller's in his haste to kiss him or shut him up and it's so good Miller shudders and grabs at him with hands that bruise, too keyed up and desperate to keep his lingering injuries in mind. They learned how to do this on the Ark, back when they were younger; there were no scars, no muscles hardened through necessity, no need to steer around sore spots. He knew where to put his hands on that younger, softer Bryan, but this new one holds secrets sleeping next to each other again couldn't reveal.  
  
"Wanna fuck you." He grunts the words into the kiss, fingers scrabbling at Bryan's belt. "Can I? Come on, Bry, I gotta..."  
  
"Yeah." Bryan's voice is choked with an emotion Miller can't name and isn't sure he would want to if he could, but he reaches between them to help with his belt and fly then goes to work on Miller's own. "Yeah, please, I need—" Stealing the rest of the plea with another too-rough kiss, Miller steers them both towards the unmade bed, shedding pants and boxers as they tumble towards it. " _Nate_."  
  
Naked, the changes they've collected lay bare, and Miller buries his face in the soft skin of Bryan's lower belly, where he still smells the same; earthy, deep, like Farm Station's worked its way into his very bones. He nips the pale expanse, red imprint of his teeth lingering for only the slightest moment before fading away. "You want to get off first?"  
  
His cock stirs against his thigh, pale and lean as the rest of him and blushing red with arousal now, but Bryan shakes his head. "Just fuck me."  
  
Lube's rationed like everything else, but they didn't have the time to do much than fumble around like teenagers again before the shit with Pike hit the fan. They've got plenty, and Miller tries not to get pissed about that too when he snags it from the crate under the bed. Bryan's on his stomach when he turns back around, scar red and ugly and right in his face and Miller wants to put a fist through the wall.  
  
He kisses the puckered knot of skin instead, feeling Bryan stiffen and then relax, all at once loose and warm and familiar again. He mumbles something into the blanket, too faint to hear, and flails blindly to pat Miller's side, balling his shirt and tugging at it.  
  
"'st do it, Nate." The words are hushed, pleading, and Miller nods as if in a trance. Lube slides down to his knuckles as he carelessly douses his hand and slips it between Bryan's legs, teasing the pink, crinkled skin of his hole with a fingertip. Bryan exhales noisily and tilts his pelvis up impatiently, doing his best to push back into the touch. "I'm fine."  
  
Miller frowns, putting a hand on Bryan's lower back and rubbing slow, gentle circles, waiting for his body to relax on its own time. "It's gonna hurt."  
  
"I said I'm fine."  
  
"And I said no. Jesus, Bry, would you just..." He leans his forehead against the hard jut of one shoulder blade, breathing quietly through his nose and trying to keep it together. "Let me do it, all right? I'm not gonna rush this." _I don't want to hurt you again_ , he doesn't say, but it's on the tip of his tongue.  
  
Bryan grumbles unhappily but gives a short nod, relaxing into the sheets again like it's a _chore_ , waiting for it, or like he doesn't remember how they used to be before they both nurtured constant bruises from kickback, learned to ride the jolt and not let a little something like the butt of your rifle fucking up your arm get in the way of doing the job.  
  
He's quiet at first, breathing steady, but like water dripping on a stone that erodes until he's shifting restlessly and Miller's finger slides in without resistance, choking back a satisfied moan at the give of his body. He watches the slow movement of his hand, mesmerized, wondering how the hell he's supposed to give all this up again now that Bryan's back in arm's reach.  
  
Bryan inhales, ready to say something, then lets the breath and the protest go, rolling back into Miller's hands and reminding him of the boy he expected to find still waiting for him, soft and welcoming and bathed in the forgiving light of good memories.  
  
Time sloughs away, until he measures its passing by Bryan's breath and the slow relaxation of his body, the way he opens to let Miller's second and then third fingers in, breathing in punched out bursts with each inward push. He grunts something that sounds like _enough_ into the pillow, the muscles in his thighs trembling as he pushes his knees up and under, giving him more of a base to push back into Miller's hand.  
  
"I'm good, Nate." He lifts his head enough to make his words audible, words slow and pleasure-slurred. "'s good, won't hurt."  
  
Kissing Bryan's lower back, Miller wipes his hand off on the blanket and opens the lube again, palming a generous fistful and spreading it along his dick, giving into the urge and thrusting into his hand. Bryan's spread and waiting, trusting him now even if once this is over, they've still got a mess to clean up.  
  
If they have anything at all. Clearing his throat and blinking away the hot prick of tears, Miller strokes a hand down Bryan's back, ending on the ripe swell of his ass. "I got you, Bry." Lining himself up, he watches the way his cock pierces his body, Bryan groaning sweetly as he takes him deep. "Yeah, that's it." They took long enough he seats himself to the hilt in that first push, hips coming to land with a soft smack against Bryan's ass. "Look at that. _Fuck_ , so good." He groans in agreement and Miller rocks deeper still, burying his face in the back of Bryan's neck. "Tell me it's good, Bry." He needs to hear it with an intensity that makes his guts ache, that this at least still works out.  
  
"It's good, Nate." His name is a gasp, and Miller's grip tightens on Bryan's hips until the skin purples, ten points of contact Bryan can't pretend didn't happen. "Missed this so much." After all the working at cross purposes when Pike stood like a wall between them, trusting each other has been like navigating a room gone dusty with disuse, feeling their way in the dark around unfamiliar configurations of furniture. Now, though… he’s always been able to trust what Bryan says when Miller’s inside him. "Love you so much."  
  
"Love you too." He shudders and sweats, propping himself up on one arm so he can work his hips in harder, bracing his feet against the bed when that isn't enough to give him the leverage he wants. Even that is barely enough. He could manage it better on his knees, but not touching each piece of Bryan he can is unthinkable. "Remember the first time we did this?" His breath disturbs the hair curling behind Bryan's ear, and they moan together when Bryan clenches down around him. "I was so goddamn nervous, but we did all right."  
  
They were sixteen and stupid and they figured out later it'd been over before things really got good, but back then it had been the best thing he'd ever felt. Bryan threads his fingers through Miller's, squeezing affectionately, and his heart tips over sideways and cracks.  
  
He comes embarrassing fast after that, like they really are teenagers again, filling Bryan and thrusting lazily into the mess he's made of him, wincing at the drag on his over-sensitive cock and pulling free. Bryan's still hard and thrusting restlessly against the mattress. He whines when Miller flips him over, denying him friction, then _howls_ when Miller sucks him down to the root.  
  
He's on a hair trigger too, muscles trembling, and when Miller reaches behind his balls to push the come slowly trickling out of him back where it came from, fingers brushing against the puffy skin of his hole, Bryan stiffens and comes. Miller nurses gently until Bryan shoves with increasing urgency at his head, releasing his cock with a gentle kiss and crawling back up Bryan's body to kiss him.  
  
Bryan sighs into his mouth and wraps his arms around Miller like he used to, all gangly limbs and satisfied little huffs of sound as he comes down. Miller holds him back and pushes back inevitability, looking around the room and the signs of their cohabitation with new eyes.  
  
"How long have you been taking those?" There's a bottle of pills on the floor, next to Bryan's beat-up rucksack. They must have knocked it over in their haste to get undressed and in bed, and the exposed secret feels like a piece of a puzzle he didn't know he needed to solve. Bryan stiffens in his arms, shrugging, and Miller tilts his chin back up. "Hey, I'm not mad or anything. I just wanna know."  
  
"After Pike," he clears his throat, rapid blinking doing nothing to hide the shine of tears that threaten. "We got back, and I couldn't get to sleep anymore. Jackson gave me those, said they'd help."  
  
"How come you didn't tell me?"  
  
Bryan shakes his head. "I couldn't... it's not nightmares, not like Hannah had, but I just couldn't sleep. I'd get too up in my head, running through everything."  
  
"And?" Miller prompts, squeezing Bryan's bare hip gently. "Come on, talk to me."  
  
"And Pike would talk me down. We'd spar, or run tactics or do some inventory, and I'd just..." he shrugs, helpless. "I don't know, he'd make it happen. He did it for all of us. Anything anybody needed, he'd do it."  
  
"Hey, you don't have to defend him. I get it." It's hard to picture Pike as anything but the guy who beat Murphy to hell and tore the camp in half once he turned back up, but he'd gotten Bryan this far, and he'd put his life on the line for all of them when it counted. It's not enough to bridge the gap in how they each see their old teacher, but it's not nothing.  
  
Bryan looks like he thinks he _does_ need to defend Pike even if he’s not around to give a shit what anybody thinks anymore, but he just nods and rolls away enough to hit the light, silence a white flag. "I'm tired. We can talk later, all right?"  
  
"Yeah." They're wrapped tight around each other like the vines crawling up that statue near Tondc, but Miller can tell Bryan's already somewhere else, somewhere as icy and unreachable as where he'd lost him before. "Yeah, later works."  
  
In the morning, Bryan's bag is gone, and his side of the bed's been empty long enough that when Miller rubs his face against the sheets, there's nothing but cold to greet him.  



End file.
